Subs are better than Starships

[Keith&Co.]

On my last Submarine patrol, someone found out that i was a Trekker. He made some comment assuming that i'd have preferred to make patrols on The Enterprise.
Actually, i was quite content to serve aboard the Rhode Island. Consider:

1. The Enterprise lost an average of one crewman a week.
2. On average, two personnel die during every security violation on the Enterprise.
3. When our computers work improperly, they stop. They do not become a threat to all life on board.
4. In 18 patrols, the Rhode Island had never been eaten by anything classified as biologics on the sensors.
5. Kirk's XO is smarter than a laptop. Imagine his qualification interviews.
6. Picard's third in command IS a laptop. See #5.
7. On the Rhode Island the quartermaster's navigation errors do not lead to time travel.
8. Food Replicators, Food Processors, Food Packs: on the Enterprise, meals are the responsibility of Engineering.
9. Stealthy as they may be, Russian vessels never actually turn invisible.
10. On the Rhode Island liberty ports can be enjoyed without worrying about the Prime Directive.
11. Life forms detected by the Rhode Island sensors are distractions, never a threat to all life on board.
12. Our probes do not come back. They especially do not come back reprogrammed by alien machine civilizations to become a threat to all life on Earth.
13. On the Rhode Island, Alien means a movie to see after watch, not something that has a good chance of sucking our brains out with a straw.
14. On the Enterprise, if the department head can't do it, it can't be done.
15. On the Enterprise, some of the department heads are telepathic. See #5.
16. ON the Rhode Island, no one has ever been killed for leaving the ship during an ion storm.
17. Nothing in the Access Hatch will scramble your molecules.
18. On the Rhode Island, they do not let engineering play with anti-matter.
19. On the Rhode Island, insane crewmen do not pilot the ship beyond the explored boundaries of human knowledge (They have, however, been known to lock themselves in the Officer's head).
20. Every single officer in Starfleet is an Academy Graduate.
21. None of the recreation facilities on the Rhode Island can become smart enough to become a threat to all life onboard.
22. In the Navy, your ID card is sufficient to verify your identity. No one has to use quantum physics to check your identity.
23. The Rhode Island seldom draws the attention of omniscient and omnipotent beings with time on their hands.
24. The Enterprise's deployment cycle is 5 years.
25. On the Rhode Island, nohting spilled in the storeroom has ever compromised reactor containment, threatening all life onboard.
26. On the Rhode Island, problems with identity usually come from typographical errors on the access lists. Not even the TRE Team is actually in the wrong universe.
27. On the Enterprise, the helm is smarter than the helmsmen, while on the Rhode Island...Um, wait...oh, never mind.
28. Our CO has never, ever, contacted, confronted, contradicted and then pissed off an actual GOD (of past or present worship) creating a threat to all life onboard.

 

[Underseer]

Too funny!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Look at John Ringo's Looking Glass novels. Subs refitted as starships. (You have a stardrive and want to build a starship as quickly as possible--the nature of the drive means there are no meaningful weight limits. What's the fastest approach? Refit a sub!)

 

[Keith&Co.]

I've read a couple different fictons that made such a proposal. Which kind of ignores just how much of the design depends on the water being outside our hull... It's our source of air, drinking water, power, cooling (for atmosphere, equipment and the reactor)... I think it'd cost almost as much to retrofit as it would to build a new one.

 

[fromderinside]

Rolling on. Yes, I'm on a roll. Italian.

Subs are much easier to make than are starships.*

*_Ibid

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I've read a couple different fictons that made such a proposal. Which kind of ignores just how much of the design depends on the water being outside our hull... It's our source of air, drinking water, power, cooling (for atmosphere, equipment and the reactor)... I think it'd cost almost as much to retrofit as it would to build a new one.

It wasn't a matter of cost, it was a matter of what could be done fast. This was a military situation.

 

[bilby]

A submarine's pressure hull is designed to keep high external water pressure out of the low pressure interior; as such, it is designed as a compressile structure, and would likely fail spectacularly as a tensile structure if tasked with keeping a one atmosphere internal pressure in, against a hard vacuum outside.

I certainly wouldn't be volunteering to crew a spacecraft made from a re-fitted sub.

 

[Underseer]

A submarine's pressure hull is designed to keep high external water pressure out of the low pressure interior; as such, it is designed as a compressile structure, and would likely fail spectacularly as a tensile structure if tasked with keeping a one atmosphere internal pressure in, against a hard vacuum outside.

I certainly wouldn't be volunteering to crew a spacecraft made from a re-fitted sub.

No problem. Just use the flux capacitors to link the Heisenberg compensators to the Structural Integrity Field, and don't forget to reverse the polarity!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A submarine's pressure hull is designed to keep high external water pressure out of the low pressure interior; as such, it is designed as a compressile structure, and would likely fail spectacularly as a tensile structure if tasked with keeping a one atmosphere internal pressure in, against a hard vacuum outside.

I certainly wouldn't be volunteering to crew a spacecraft made from a re-fitted sub.

I disagree. Remember, subs are expected to function in a combat situation. You don't want a passing pressure wave (say, a depth charge) exploding your sub.

 

[bilby]

I disagree. Remember, subs are expected to function in a combat situation. You don't want a passing pressure wave (say, a depth charge) exploding your sub.

No you don't.

But it does, whether you want it to or not, if it explodes close enough.

Of course, a submerged hull is under compressile stress even at the lowest point of most pressure waves; you have to be upsettingly close to an exploding depth charge for the pressure on the outside of the hull to drop below one atmosphere, even at fairly shallow depths; arranging an explosion that has a lowest pressure of as little as 0.5 atm is difficult without using nuclear depth charges, and subs are not expected to survive a close encounter with such a munition. Indeed, the existence of nuclear depth charges, and the use of hydrostatic, rather than contact fuses in conventional depth charges, is a result of attempting to overcome the primary defense of a submarine - that of being in an unknown location.

If an attacker knows exactly where your sub is, then you are doomed. Because subs are fragile. In combat, the submariner's defence is not to be very close to the area being depth-charged. Ideally, one should be in a different ocean altogether.

Your uninformed speculation aside, the fact remains that submarine hulls are not designed as tensile structures, and would make very poor spacecraft hulls.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It wasn't a matter of cost, it was a matter of what could be done fast. This was a military situation.

Fast.

Okay.

Well, every single hull penetration would have to be redesigned and replaced. All the ones that protect against external pressure would have to be engineered for external vacuum.

The hydraulic systems that are exposed to vacuum, now, would have to be replaced.

The sonar system would be worthless, junk that and replace it with whatever space sensors can be retrofitted into the hull.

Radio's designed for a whole lot of long-long-long wave communications that are designed to penetrate the insulating layer of ocean atop us. Very slow comms. Most of radio would probably need replacing. And most of the antennae replaced by vacuum-proofed hydraulic antennae.

The power plant would need either a complete redesign and replacement or it would need one humongous reserve of water to be stored in the hull....somewhere.

The screw and the outboard would be worthless, propulsion needs to be shoved in there somewhere.

Oxygen generation can't work anymore. And the air scrubbing systems are largely designed to augment the O2 generation system.

All in all, it'd make about as much sense (cost-wise, time-wise, effectiveness-wise) to just take a 560 foot length of a really big pipe and shove spaceship parts into it.

Maybe part of the Big Dig?
Lincoln Tunnel?

 

[bilby]

In other words, it's kind of a neat idea for a fun piece of escapist fiction, as long as you don't look too closely at the details.

Most Sci Fi is like that.

 

[dockeen]

Turn the Seaview into a Starship to go hunt for the missing Jupiter 2 to use it's hyperdrive as a template for an environmentally sound replacement for warp drive. Got it.

 

[Togo]

The ideal starship would have 15 main deflector dishes as it's principle armament. With maybe a backup of a few photon torpedoes for reconfiguration purposes. Because how often do you defeat the bad guys using anything else?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Fast.

Okay.

Well, every single hull penetration would have to be redesigned and replaced. All the ones that protect against external pressure would have to be engineered for external vacuum.

The hydraulic systems that are exposed to vacuum, now, would have to be replaced.

Or simply not work. What's a starship need with diving planes or a periscope?

The sonar system would be worthless, junk that and replace it with whatever space sensors can be retrofitted into the hull.

Agreed.

Radio's designed for a whole lot of long-long-long wave communications that are designed to penetrate the insulating layer of ocean atop us. Very slow comms. Most of radio would probably need replacing. And most of the antennae replaced by vacuum-proofed hydraulic antennae.

*STAR*ship. No radio. It was like the old days--you communicate when you return.

The power plant would need either a complete redesign and replacement or it would need one humongous reserve of water to be stored in the hull....somewhere.

True.

The screw and the outboard would be worthless, propulsion needs to be shoved in there somewhere.

*STAR*ship, you think they were using rockets?

Oxygen generation can't work anymore. And the air scrubbing systems are largely designed to augment the O2 generation system.

All in all, it'd make about as much sense (cost-wise, time-wise, effectiveness-wise) to just take a 560 foot length of a really big pipe and shove spaceship parts into it.

Except where are you going to get a nice, strong, big pipe laying around? Especially one with living quarters built in?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Or simply not work. What's a starship need with diving planes or a periscope?

Then the ripout will take those, too, and have to plug up the holes, too. And have no radio antennae...

*STAR*ship. No radio. It was like the old days--you communicate when you return.

They're not going to get permission to land? Or clear their exit lane? Or be able to communicate if they run into another submarine out there? Okay. Seems risky to me, but if that's the basic idea. Maybe an airlock to have a signalman take two flags out? Or a space-proof aldis lamp...

*STAR*ship, you think they were using rockets?

I know they're not using steam-powered reduction gears or a diesel. As i said, take those out and shove SOMETHING in. But most vessels are designed around either their weapon system or their propulsion system. Whatever the fuck the starship is going to use, they'll have to be damned lucky to be able to just weld it into a hull built for a completely different system.

Except where are you going to get a nice, strong, big pipe laying around?

that's why i suggested that existing traffic tunnels make just as much sense as a submarine hull.

Especially one with living quarters built in?

Park a winnebago in the traffic tunnel before you make it a spaceship. wait until the July 7th traffic jam and just buy the ones that are blocking traffic.

 

[Underseer]

The ideal starship would have 15 main deflector dishes as it's principle armament. With maybe a backup of a few photon torpedoes for reconfiguration purposes. Because how often do you defeat the bad guys using anything else?

Deflector arrays are mostly used for navigation.

 

[dockeen]

Deflector arrays are mostly used for navigation.

Which writers for Star Trek seemed to forget on occasion.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Another novel (originally serialized in Analog magazine, which is where I read it) with a sub turned into a spaceship is Harry Harrison's In our Hands, the Stars AKA 'The Daleth effect'.
Also there have been stories where the spaceships look similar to submarines.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Yeah, but every sub i've ever been on, the toilets require gravity to function.